VFCPUG Online

Hot Hot Hot

Martin Baker’s back with another Digital Heaven podcast to help you streamline your working practice in Final Cut Pro. This month’s Hot Tip demonstrates one of my favourite time-saving features—using the Playhead Sync Pop-Up Menu to automatically open clips from the Timeline in the Viewer. Anyone who’s carefully adjusted…

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Jonathan | 01 March 2007 | Comments (1)
Tags: Digital Heaven | Final Cut Pro | Tutorials

Crossed Off

One of the things that the 5.1.3 update brought was a fix for the issue outlined in the following KB document, “Final Cut Pro: Nested Cross Dissolves with still-images may produce unexpected results”. Now that we have fix for 5.1.3 too, it seem that you can now play cross dissolves…

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Jonathan | 24 February 2007 | Comments (3)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | KB Article | Software Update

Transfer

The recent KB document, “Final Cut Pro: Ethernet network volumes should not be used for capture or playback”, addresses the fundamental issue of data transfer and media drives. Today’s Ethernet standards are just not equipped to support sustained transfer of even the smallest, least demanding video formats. This is paramount…

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FCP Files

The kerfuffle caused by FCP 5.1.3 reminded me of a couple of the exercises I worked on for the Optimizing Your FCP System book. For those of you unfamiliar with the inner working of Mac OS X applications, FCP is actually a collection of thousands of files, which are installed…

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Jonathan | 23 February 2007 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | Mac OS X | Tutorials

FCP 5.1.4

With all the rumblings and grumblings about the recent 5.1.3 update, the release of Final Cut Pro 5.1.4 should come as blessed relief. Essentially a maintenance release, once you’ve installed the new software FxPlug plug-ins and XML import should once again work as expected! Early reports indicate that the update…

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Jonathan | 22 February 2007 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | Software Update

FCP 5.1.3

Compared the mammoth update that was 5.1.2, the newly released Final Cut Pro 5.1.3 fixes render file compatibility between Intel-based and PPC-based Mac computers, keyboard layout issues, and a problem with cross dissolves in nested sequences. The new software is available through Software Update and direct download. UPDATE 19 February…

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Jonathan | 15 February 2007 | Comments (3)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | Software Update

Best Big Plug-in

Those of you who’ve been following this blog for a while might recall my previous note of admiration for Dion Scoppettuolo at Apple. If that’s so you can probably imagine how thrilled I was to discover his new online seminar, “Shake: Advanced Digital Compositing & Integration with Final Cut Studio”…

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Rinse, Repeat

Martin Baker serves up another gem of a tip in his latest Digital Heaven video podcast, “Backing Up Sequences” (QT required). It’s super easy and amazingly efficient, a beautiful solution, which as Martin readily admits, you’ll wish it had occurred to you to work this way long ago!…

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Jonathan | 09 February 2007 | Comments (0)
Tags: Digital Heaven | Final Cut Pro | Tutorials

On the Mark

Digital Heaven have just announced, Final Print, a standalone tool for printing markers from FCP. Marker information is exported to an XML file, which Final Print reads to display timecode, name, comment and thumbnail. There’s a demo of Final Print available for download from the Digital Heaven web site and…

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Ruffled

I’ve been neglectful in drawing your attention to Steve’s latest tutorials at Ripple Training… In December he offered us a step-by-step guide to creating an “Animated Text Highlight” using FCP and Boris. And he’s begun the year with “’Cops’ Revisited”, in which he demonstrates a technique using Motion to create…

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Opting In

By posting on 31 December, Martin Baker of Digital Heaven must have been trying to sneak his “Hot Tips” video podcast past me! Episode 4 is titled “Options Galore” (QT 7 required) and includes some examples of how to use the Option key when you’re working in the Timeline to…

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Marking Time

Ken Stone has begun the new year with a comprehensive introduction to XML and Final Cut Studio by Philip Hodgetts. The article, “What is XML and what does it mean for Final Cut Studio users?” begins with an overview of the language structure and uses, before exploring how it is…

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Songs About Rainbows

Red Giant Software, have added Magic Bullet Colorista to their line-up of popular plug-ins. There are versions for a range of host applications including FCP (5.1.2), Motion, After Effects, Premiere Pro, and Avid. Though the site doesn’t mention it explicitly the FCP and Motion version of the plug-in would appear…

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Countdown

If you haven’t yet taken advantage of the Final Cut Studio “Crossgrade” program you don’t have long to get your discs in the post. All orders must be postmarked 20 December 2006. What the upgrade paths will be after the current promotion closes is anyone’s guess. If you have earlier…

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Jonathan | 18 December 2006 | Comments (4)
Tags: Final Cut Studio | Intel-based Macs

Quitting Time

While we’re preparing to welcome Wes Plate from Automatic Duck to tomorrow’s VFCPUG meeting, it might be worth noting that Apple recently posted a support document, “Final Cut Pro: Unexpected Quit with P2 import”. The article identifies a conflict between P2 and older versions of Automatic Duck Pro Export FCP.…

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Charming

Martin Baker of Digital Heaven is back with his third “Hot Tips” video podcast. In this episode he fittingly offers three FCP tips to help us refine the way we navigate the application. He begins by showing us an easy way to change the duration of stills and completes the…

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Jonathan | 19 November 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Digital Heaven | Final Cut Pro | Tutorials

Changes

Ken Stone has posted a new article by Andrew Balis, in which he details “What’s New in Final Cut 5.1.2”. If you’re hovering over the update button, or curious about what your new software can do, this piece provides some nice illustrated examples to help you become familiar with the…

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Jonathan | 15 October 2006 | Comments (1)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | Ken Stone | Software Update

Supplements

The recent KB document, “Final Cut Pro 5.1.2: Some third-party QuickTime components may prevent Final Cut Pro from starting”, explains a potential conflict between the most recent version of FCP and additional software—plugins or codecs—you may have installed. To troubleshoot the issue, the article recommends you temporarily move such third-party…

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Moderation

“Maximum memory usage in Final Cut Pro is 2.5 GB” is one of the KB documents I find particularly interesting. Why? Well, it’s a subject that comes up frequently and in my experience it’s something that frequently catches people of guard. Conventional wisdom is that more RAM you install in…

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Technicality

A new KB document, “Final Cut Pro: Nested Cross Dissolves with still-images may produce unexpected results”, draws attention to an issue you might bump into under specific conditions. If you do encounter this problem, rendering the affected areas of your timeline should remove the problem, or switching your transition to…

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Jonathan | 01 October 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | KB Article

Tempered

While I’m excited to see FxPlug support introduced in Final Cut Pro 5.1.2, it’s worth noting that there are some limitations. These are outlined in the KB document, “Final Cut Pro 5.1.2: FxPlug Restrictions and Troubleshooting” and may influence your decisions around which filters to work with.…

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Jonathan | 30 September 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | FxPlug | KB Article

Finicky

If you’re having trouble launching FCP after updating to version 5.1.2 you may have stumbled onto a conflict introduced by subsequently installing Motion 2.1. According to the KB document, “Final Cut Pro 5.1.2 won’t open after installing Motion 2.1”, you need to install the Pro Apps Update 2006-02 or install…

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Final Cut Pro 5.1.2

Today Apple released Final Cut Pro 5.1.2, which (as Matt notes in the forum) is available through Software Update and by direct download. Details appear scarce at the moment, with the FCP Late Breaking News currently unavailable through FCP, Software Update, and the Apple Support site. I’ll update as I…

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Jonathan | 26 September 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | Larry Jordan | Software Update

Continuous

Every experienced FCP editor knows that timecode is sacred. The latest Knowledge Base support document from Apple addresses the perils of recording video with different timecode standards. Titled, “Final Cut Pro: Avoid using both drop frame and non-drop frame timecode on the same tape”, the article explains that FCP may…

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Jonathan | 17 September 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | KB Article

Heaven Sent

The good folks at Digital Heaven appear to have been busy. Earlier this week they announced 2 new plug-ins for FCP, DHRetroTV and DHDream, as well as an update to their VideoSpace widget. If that was not enough they also posted the first episode of their new monthly “Hot Tips”…

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What's All This?

Mike at HD4NDs appears to have a further exclusive, this time regarding an upcoming release of Final Cut Pro. The rest of the web has been curiously silent about any announcements from Apple at IBC, but that may change when everyone returns to work on Monday. As reported by HD4NDs,…

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Nifty

Ken Stone has published a new tutorial, “Mapping Effects To Key Commands In Final Cut” by Andrew Balis, in which he carefully explains how to create custom keyboard shortcuts for your favourite FCP filters. If you find yourself applying the same effects over and over, or you have a particular…

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Jonathan | 03 September 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | Ken Stone | Tutorials

Misdirected

A new KB article, “Final Cut Pro: Send To Motion evokes QuickTime Player instead of Motion” describes a curious circumstance in which you may experience your .motn project files opening in the wrong application. The problem occurs if you have modified your External Editor settings to explicitly instruct FCP to…

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My Space

I’ve been somewhat preoccupied this week playing with the edit suite set-up at school. We introduced a system built around Xsan last fall and initially deployed 5 workstations while the fibre installation was being completed. By the time the graduating students really hit crunch time in late March we’d…

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The Look

Courtesy of Shane Ross You’re toiling away in an effort to finish your HD show ready for air. The problem is the tool you’re using to correct the colour on certain scenes is taking far too long to render. What do you do? Well, if you’re Shane Ross you start…

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Outboard

Apple have published a new KB article, “Final Cut Studio: About external video-monitoring conflicts”, which describes how FCP, DVD Studio Pro, and Motion may sometimes compete for the same external device. To resolve the issue Apple suggest you either open applications separately, quit and re-launch, or deactivate external video output…

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Jonathan | 22 August 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Studio | KB Article

Wily

Ken Stone has posted a link to a FCP tutorial, “Speed Changes using Match Frame” by the incredibly fabulous Estelle McGechie. Originally featured on Ripple Training, the short video demonstrates how to modify the speed of a clip in the Timeline without affecting other clips. It’s a very cool technique…

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Variation

Apple’s latest FCP-related KB article, “Final Cut Pro: About the Blackmagic Gamma filter for Final Cut Pro”, addresses a gamma discrepancy between Blackmagic’s uncompressed 8 and 10-bit codecs used with 4.x drivers and those now found natively in FCP 5.x. The document suggests downloading and installing a filter from Blackmagic…

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Police

Those of you engaged in the good fight with HDV may want to peruse the recent KB Article, “Final Cut Pro: Minimum Allowable Free Space setting fails with HDV”. Apparently you’ll need to be vigilant about disk space because FCP does not “respect” the setting when you’re capturing HDV.* Due…

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Jonathan | 29 July 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | HDV | KB Article

On the Road

Apple Canada have just announced the dates for their forthcoming tour, “Mobile Editing with Final Cut Studio and Sony XDCAM HD System”. Events are currently planned in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver towards the end of August—registration required and space is limited. As the title suggested the focus of the tour…

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Jonathan | 28 July 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Apple Canada | Final Cut Pro | XDCAM-HD

Discrepancy

According to the new KB article, “Final Cut Pro 5.1: About timecode accuracy with Analog-to-DV converters”, if you use an analogue to FireWire convertor to capture media and a third-party adaptor for serial device control, you may experience an error with timecode. The workaround suggested in the document is to…

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Jonathan | 26 July 2006 | Comments (2)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | FireWire | KB Article

Working Together

Apple’s latest Pro success story, “From Facility to Funhouse” involves JWTwo in New York. The article looks at how they’ve used Xsan to increase creativity and collaboration within the agency. Members of the team describe how Apple’s solution has enabled them to re-imagine the organisation. They explain that with Xsan…

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Exchange

Most of us are aware of the FCS “Hardware Compatibility Guide”, which lists the devices Apple have qualified to work with their software and everyone should check it before rashly diving into a project to know whether their workflow is officially supported. That said, even some qualified devices can display…

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Rule Britania

Late last week I had an opportunity to visit Apple’s UK corporate headquarters around the corner from the flagship retail store on Regent Street. Amongst the systems they had on display was a G5 connected to a Sony PDW-F70 deck. I had a couple of minutes to play with there…

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Gridlock

Apple have published a new KB Article, “Final Cut Pro 5: Unexpectedly quits after importing XDCAM Clips”, which addresses a fairly serious issue with the new PDZK-P1 XDCAM Transfer Software Sony released last week. Apparently FCP may quit unexpectedly when you use the new import feature to bring XDCAM HD…

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Jonathan | 12 July 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | KB Article | XDCAM-HD

Arrived

Courtesy of Sony If you’ve been holding out since NAB for Sony to release their XDCAM HD software component for FCP*, the interminable wait is over! Available as a direct download from the Sony Business Solutions & Systems site, the package includes, XDCAM FAM driver, XDCAM Transfer standalone application, Sony…

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Abort! Abort!

The new KB article, “Final Cut Pro: Abort Capture behaves differently when capturing to Xsan”, outlines how different storage solutions affect the way the application performs. As the title suggests, the “Abort capture on dropped frames” (Final Cut Pro > User Preferences > General) feature is context sensitive. If you’re…

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Jonathan | 28 June 2006 | Comments (1)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | KB Article | Xsan

Copied

Apple have posted a new KB document, “Final Cut Pro 5.1.1: Updating older projects to address duplicated frames in P2 media”. It includes two sets of step-by-step instructions for how to update P2 media files that may have imported incorrectly with duplicate frames in earlier versions of FCP.…

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Jonathan | 27 June 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | KB Article | P2

Incoming

Courtesy of Apple What do you know about FxPlug? Motion users are probably well aware that it’s an “open” set of protocols used to create filters and generators. With the FxPlug SDK third-party developers are able to access “the same GPU hardware acceleration or CPU-based technologies that Motion uses” (FxPlug…

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Flicker

Steve Martin of Ripple Training has updated and reclassified one of his excellent FCP video tutorials, “Blink Blink” (QT movie) so that it is now freely available. Steve’s tutorials are consistently of the highest standard and are always brimming with insight and tips. In this one he demonstrates how to…

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Jonathan | 13 June 2006 | Comments (1)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | Ripple Training | Tutorials

Do Not Touch

Much has been made of the “round-trip” capabilities of the FCS software. It is relatively easy to move files between applications, you just need a little bit of know-how to do it properly. And so Apple have posted a new KB article, “Final Cut Pro: How to edit audio nondestructively”,…

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The Multitude

Courtesy of Apple One of the big ticket items in FCP 5 was multicam editing. If you’ve never used this feature or want to develop a deeper understanding of its potentials then, “The Essentials of Multicam Editing in Final Cut Pro” by Steve Martin is the tutorial for you. Steve’s…

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Interference

“Final Cut Pro 5: ‘Unable to read the movie just captured’” refers to an error that can occur when you’re attempting to work with a non-controllable USB or FireWire device while you have a FireWire deck connected to the same system. Disconnecting the deck while you capture should remove the…

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Overload

Apple have published a KB article that addresses an issue with FCP 5, higher-resolution video output, and certain hardware configurations. The title of the document, “Final Cut Pro: Edit To Tape via a PCI Express I/O card may drop frames with HD” says it all rather succinctly. Step-by-step instructions to…

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The Fix

Continuing the trend for releasing KB articles in packs, Apple’s final instalment from yesterday is called, “Final Cut Pro: Troubleshooting Basics”, which includes recommendations to check your system requirements, update software, and confirm third-party compatibility*. If problems persist, the article includes steps for deleting User Preferences and the recommended process…

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Jonathan | 03 June 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | KB Article | Troubleshooting

Big Screen

It took me a moment to realise what I was seeing the first time I encountered Digital Cinema Desktop Preview demonstrated in FCP HD. As Jeff Booth took us on a tour through the application, I thought perhaps it was something he was using just for the presentation! It’s now…

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Grab

Apple have posted a new KB article, “Final Cut Pro: Read Prefetch settings for Xserve RAID”, which suggests a couple of methods to optimise performance of an Xserve RAID when transferring high data rate video formats. The document recommends using a Read Prefetch setting of 128 stripes and storing audio-only…

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Jonathan | 01 June 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | KB Article | Xserve RAID

Get In Line

A recent update to the Apple KB, “Final Cut Pro: Apply the Broadcast Safe filter last” addresses the importance of applying filters in order. While the haphazard combination of some filters may lead to unexpected results, it’s vital that the Broadcast Safe filter be applied last in order for it…

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Jonathan | 01 June 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | KB Article

Well Behaved

Updates to Apple KB articles always seem to travel in packs! The most recent “Final Cut Pro HD: Keyframes are not pasted when you choose Paste Attributes” arrived alongside the “Compatibility with Multiple Users” document I noted earlier. The issue at hand this time around involves the contrasting implementations of…

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Jonathan | 27 May 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | KB Article

Guest List

Apple have updated the “Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express: Compatibility With Multiple Users and Macintosh Manager” KB article. While FCP supports multiple local users, it doesn’t support NetBoot or Macintosh Manager. I make no pretensions about my qualifications as a SysAdmin and thankfully, it’s not part of my…

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Prevailing Wisdom

Undeterred by the recent statement that the new MacBook notebooks do not meet the FCS system requirements, Dave Nagel at Creative Mac has published the results of some benchmarks, which suggest they actually perform quite respectably! That is to say, they perform well in the tasks in this test. As…

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FCP 5.1.1

Final Cut Pro 5.1.1 is available to download. The update addresses compatibility issues and “critical” bug fixes—mostly geared towards the MacBook Pro. Issues include a boost to real-time processing, resolution for a problem with Canvas display*, and P2 imports. *I’m wondering if this issue is related to a problem we…

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Jonathan | 17 May 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Final Cut Pro | MacBook Pro | NAB | P2

New Day

If you log in to the Apple Store, you’ll see that they started shipping Final Cut Studio 5.1* today. The suite includes Universal versions of each application, which means they will run natively on both PowerPC and Intel Macs. If you order now, you can still take advantage of the…

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Jonathan | 29 March 2006 | Comments (3)

Tipoff

As the number of online video tutorials proliferates at an accelerated rate, the folks over at ProAppTips have decided to join the fray. Currently CaptMench and Shane Ross (stalwarts of Apple’s FCP forum), have started the ball rolling with useful tutorials that include mixing aspect ratios and importing P2 media.…

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Jonathan | 13 March 2006 | Comments (0)

Big Time

Bruce the Wonder Yak finally went mainstream this week. A quick Google search will reveal that the word’s been out for a while (sometimes controversially), but now that a few of the bigger sites (HD4NDs, finalcutpronews, TUAW) have picked up the story, Bruce has truly stepped into the spotlight. So…

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Jonathan | 12 February 2006 | Comments (0)

Lost Media

Apple have posted a new support document, “Motion project media goes offline in Final Cut Pro project” (Article ID: 303143). It outlines a method to reconnect media files for Motion clips within FCP projects.…

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Jonathan | 18 January 2006 | Comments (0)

Standing Together

Courtesy of Apple Take one last look at the box, for Final Cut Pro is no longer available as a standalone product—there’s only Final Cut Studio now. I suspect that Apple’s pricing structure meant that sales of the standalone package were not very popular. Apple are also pointing out…

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Jonathan | 12 January 2006 | Comments (0)

Universal Pro Apps

Courtesy of Apple According to reports Steve Jobs* just announced that the Pro Apps will be available as Universal Binary versions in March 2006! They’ll be a US$49 disc exchange program for users of the most recent releases to “crossgrade”. (* 01:10:40 Keynote address)…

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Jonathan | 10 January 2006 | Comments (0)

Compressor Presets

Ken Stone has posted a great introductory tutorial “Building Custom Presets in Compressor 2”. In the article he covers the process of creating presets, how to modify different settings, and what individual settings mean. If you deliver on DVD and you need to know how to extend your use beyond…

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Recapturing HDV

David Battistella has posted an article on “Recapturing HDV” over at Creative Cow. In it he addresses some of the controversy surrounding the viability of HDV as a broadcast format and explores a couple of different workflows using FCP and the Multibridge to uprez the video.…

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Jonathan | 02 January 2006 | Comments (0)
Tags: Blackmagic | HDV | Multibridge

Spotlight and FCP

FreshHDV recently posted a link to new Apple Support doc, “Final Cut Pro: File in use error when rendering” (Article ID: 302790), which helps resolve a minor conflict betwen Spotlight and FCP. In short, Spotlight indexing will occasionally interrupt FCP render operations. You can eliminate this problem by adding…

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FCP 5.0.4

Courtesy of AppleApple today released Final Cut Pro 5.0.4. It’s available through Software Update. The update provides general performance enhancements and increased reliability; addresses an issue with 720p capture from PCI cards and sync problems with DVCPRO 50; adds support for the impending AG-HVX200 and P2 technology. For more information…

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Vancouver Final Cut Pro User Group Online